One way in which I benefit from being a Hacker News junkie is that I have like third of (the better part of) the Internet cached in my head. Every now and then (usually many times a month) someone mentions a problem they're working on and I immediately chime in with "you know, two months ago there was this article on Hacker News, which described this tech/tool/advice that solves exactly this".

Among many others, I managed to positively affect my company this way by pointing my boss in the direction of good solutions and clarifying which of his ideas are actually feasible.